Jesus is Our North Star

Acts 4:1-12

Introduction

I will confess to you that I’m horrible when it comes to directions. Whenever we go on a trip, I completely rely on Amanda. My confidence in her surpasses that of any GPS. If I don’t have Amanda, I definitely rely on the GPS directions on my phone.

But what did people do before that? There were maps of course. But it is easy to get lost on a map. What if you have the map upside down? What if you don’t know where you are on the map?

For thousands of years people guided their way by the stars. I’m not talking about astrology but navigation. You find a star that is above where you want to go and then you follow that star until you get where you want. The problem is that all of those stars in the sky move. All except one. Polaris or the North Star does not move and it is right above the North Pole. If you want to go north, follow the North Star and you get to where you want, no matter what time of the year it is. If only we had something like that for life.

Actually we do. And his name is Jesus. Jesus is not just the founder of a religious system. Jesus is the whole thing. When I was considering Christianity, I was overwhelmed by everything I was being told. It was very confusing. I felt lost. But I encountered the person of Jesus. It was Jesus that gave me direction, even though there is plenty of other things that confuse me. It was Jesus that was my North Star. And I can say with confidence that I’m the first to figure this out.

Healed in Jesus Name

In this passage of Acts, we are still dealing with the fallout from the healing of the beggar who could not walk. We sometimes think of the ancients as ignorant and that we know better with our scientific background. But even the ancients knew that adult men who have never walked in their life normally don’t jump up and start walking. This is strange and they wanted an explanation. He had been begging for decades so we know that he was not someone planted there to pretend to be healed. How did Peter and John do it?

I don’t know what they thought the options were. Probably they thought they were using sorcery and that they had healed by the power of demons. The Old Testament had strict punishments for sorcerers. We do know that later Rabbinic traditions suggested that Jesus performed his miracles with magic. Notice that they didn’t deny the miracles took place.

So Peter answered those who were interrogating him on this topic. Notice that it says that Peter was filled with the Holy Spirit. What he was about to say was not just his own opinion. He says that the man was healed in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth.

What does that mean? We were taught at an early age to pray things in Jesus name. The way many of us interpret that is that we should tag on “in Jesus’ name” at the end of our prayers. The problem is that there are not many prayers in the New Testament that end with “in Jesus’ name, amen.” We will see later in this series what happens if people just try to use it as a magic formula.

Being healed in Jesus name is about the authority and power of Jesus. It is more than identifying the prayer as a Christian prayer. It is about Jesus working through his people, operating the Body of Christ, for his purposes. Peter and John didn’t use the power of Jesus for their purposes, Jesus used Peter and John for his purposes. That is what it means to heal in Jesus’ name.

This is not just about healing, it is about everything. Peter quotes Psalm 118:22 that refers to the stone that is rejected becoming the cornerstone. We are to imagine workers beginning to build a stone structure. A stone is brought forward and they decide it’s not good enough. Then the owner of the building steps forward and overrides the decision. Not only will the stone be used, it will be the cornerstone. What is a cornerstone? I found this definition on the web.

“In relation to architecture, a cornerstone is traditionally the first stone laid for a structure, with all other stones laid in reference. A cornerstone marks the geographical location by orienting a building in a specific direction.”

That cornerstone is Jesus and that is exactly what he was to the early church. He was not just the founder of a new religion, he was the cornerstone that orients the entire church into the proper direction.

Ministry in Jesus Name

So what about now? We live in a strange but exciting time in this COVID-19 world. For decades or longer we have been able to minister the way we have always done with just a few adjustments here and there. There was some comfort there. The way you led a Bible study in 1950 was not too different than the way you did it in 2000. Prayer meetings were the same. Worship music, despite some changes in songs and sometimes instruments, followed the same pattern. There was comfort in sameness.

Everything has changed because of COVID-19. For the first time, I cannot tell you what ministry will look like in just three months. I don’t know if in three months we will be back to congregational singing or if we will be back to worshiping at home with only online services.

When it comes to life in general, I have frequently spoken of a COVID fog. There is also a COVID fog for ministry. But we are not completely lost.

We have a North Star and his name is Jesus. Don’t look at any of those other stars because they are always changing. We will think we know where we are going but we will get lost.

But if we keep our eyes on Jesus we will be going in the right direction. Jesus is the cornerstone of this church. Not just that he is the first stone laid, but he determines the location and direction of the church. What does ministry look like in a COVID world? It is ministry in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth.

As someone interested in leadership, I would like to develop a five and ten year plan for ministry. But I can’t. But what I can do is seek to find out what Jesus wants from me and from this church right now. What does ministry in the name of Jesus look like right now.

In some ways this is an exciting time. For the first time we can’t look to the past to see what worked then. We can’t even anticipate what ministry will look like in the future. The only thing we can do is look for where Jesus is leading us right now. For those who don’t like change, this will be a challenge and will be uncomfortable. But it is our only option.

How do we do this? The first three steps are: pray, pray and pray. Then we look around us and look for signs of what God is doing around us. Instead of trying to get God to bless our good ideas we need to join in with what God is doing. That is ministry in Jesus’ name.

Conclusion

I will be honest with you, I wish things were easier. None of my seminary training prepared for the ministry world that we find ourselves in. But my hope is the same hope as Peter and John. Ministry in the name of Jesus Christ or Nazareth. Jesus is our cornerstone. Jesus is our North Star. With all of the things that have change, that has not changed. 

I don’t know what things will look like a month, a year or a decade from now. But I know who we need to look to and that is Jesus. Let us move forward as a church not in our own wisdom and power but in the name of Jesus.